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It used to run games rather well but not anymore. My windows experience score (Vista) dropped significantly since a clean install of that OS. I lost the majority of my score in the graphics category, which leads me to believe that the factory set up did not reset with the clean install.

After this debacle I installed (OEM) windows 7Pro 64bit. The windows experience score was unchanged. The score is a 3.2 for what it matters. I have also upped my RAM to a full 4gb from the original 2gb. The computer is recognizing all 4gb.

The only use for my computer is playing EVE which requires very little in the form of graphics and the game actually plays faster on my other laptop with a 1.4mhz Celeron processor running XPhome and 2gb of RAM.

The 7150M graphics accelerator is supposed to pull some of the RAM and apply it to the video. Thinking I could dedicate RAM to the 7150M manually, I went into the BIOS. The BIOS setting for RAM dedicated to video was set to 64mb. I manually set it to 128mb. My only options are 32, 64 and 128. This increased my game performance which again leads me to believe that the settings are not allocating the RAM in the manner of the initial set up.

I also went into the Invidia control panel and set the 3-D to performance instead of quality which had no marked improvement. According to Invidia there is nothing more I can do to improve this card’s performance. HP had nothing to add except that I could pay them $60 and they would ‘optimize’ my system. They suggested some 3rd party software that could change the BIOS settings so I can dedicate more RAM to the video accelerator.

A little research and it was recommended changing the registry (which scares the bejeezus out of me!) here are my options:

A ) give HP the money to fix the computer (will it really do anything?)B ) find this 3rd party software and mess with the BIOS (any suggestions on software?)C ) change the registry (would like to avoid at all costs)